Re: the dress-burning on Sunday, Aug 7 – just 3 days after the murders. I find it too strange that Lizzie had decided to innocently burn a dress so soon after Andrew & Abby had been killed. If she were innocent, it’s probable she may have shed no tears over Abby’s demise, but wouldn’t she have been devastated over her father’s death? Even if Victorian propriety had forced her to keep her emotions bottled up, you would think the last thing she would’ve thought of would be to clean out her wardrobe & get rid of any paint-stained dresses so soon after the butchery.
The timing of it is just too suspicious. Her father had just been brutally hacked to death & she had decided to nonchalantly clean out her closet. Why that day? Although I’m not 100% convinced of Lizzie’s guilt, I’m still not buying the timing of the dress-burning scenario.
I believe Lizzie wore the paint-stained Bedford cord, the one that ended up in the stove, on the Thursday morning of the murders. None of the women who fussed over Lizzie afterwards described her as wearing a navy Bengaline silk. This was the dress, (a 'going out' dress) that Lizzie said she wore and that she handed over to the police.
None of them could describe the dress that she did wear, though Mrs Churchill had a go, and said in her testimony "I only looked at the general effect; it looked like light blue-and-white ground-work to me, with a deep navy blue diamond printed on it. The diamond is the most distinct thing in my mind. It was a navy blue calico dress, cotton, either calico or cambric." ('Goodbye Lizzie Borden.' Robert Sullivan. Page 95)
Patrolman Doherty, one of the first police on the scene, described Lizzie wearing 'a light blue dress with a bosom in the waist' (Sullivan: Page 113) He was vague and heaven knows what he meant by 'bosom in the waist', but light blue isn't navy silk and he didn't recognise the Bengaline in court either.
Bridget described a dress with 'a sprig' pattern. Dr Bowen struggled, but even he described 'a drab' outfit. None of the witnesses identified the navy blue Bengaline as the gown worn. I sometimes wonder if Mrs Churchill, Mrs Bowen etc had a little think to themselves afterwards and wondered why an innocent woman would pull a dress she obviously hadn't worn out of her wardrobe to give to the police?
It's true none of them saw blood on her dress. (A) They were shocked and horrified at what had happened and weren't looking for it, and (B) They were in dimly lighted rooms with the windows draped and shaded against the morning sun.
By the time she burned that paint-stained dress Lizzie knew she would probably be arrested. On the Saturday evening after the funeral the blundering Fall River Mayor, Dr Coughlin, inferred to her that she was suspected. She had little time to get rid of any incriminating evidence after that. For all she knew, her arrest could come at any time.
